The present invention relates to a vacuum conduit arrangement for a central dust-collecting system that is provided in a building and has vacuum conduits that are interconnected by couplings. The system further has at least one connection means for a vacuum hose of a cleaning apparatus.
It is known to use vacuum cleaners for the dry-state cleaning of rooms and all types of objects, such as upholstered furniture, beds, drapes, carpets, etc., that are disposed in these rooms. With such apparatus, which are generally driven by an electric motor, a suction fan is driven with a motor that operates at high speed; this suction fan generates a strong suction stream. This suction stream is fed to the vacuum cleaner via a flexible vacuum hose. The free end of the vacuum hose is provided, via a suction pipe, with a suction mouthpiece, a so-called suction nozzle. During vacuuming, this suction nozzle glides over the surface that is to be cleaned, whereby the suction stream that flows into the suction nozzle at high velocity carries along the dirt and dust particles located in the vicinity of the suction nozzle. The stream of dust-laden air is conveyed to a filter device, which is preferably formed by a filter bag of filter-active material, such as textile fabric or paper. Due to the filtering action, the dirt contained in the stream of dust-laden air is retained and accumulated in the apparatus, with the "cleaned" stream of air being returned to the atmosphere of the room. However, all of these movable vacuum cleaners, which have a high suction capacity, have the drawback that the relatively heavy and cumbersome apparatus must be moved forward while proceeding with the vacuuming. With so-called hand-operated devices, the relatively heavy device must be moved with the hand over the surface that is to be cleaned. With devices having a vacuum hose, the device must be moved forward during vacuuming, and is laborious to transport, especially when cleaning steps, or when moving between rooms or between floors. With all of these devices, power is supplied via a long power cord, and the frequent need to change or replace the filter bag due to its small holding capacity is laborious and disruptive. Furthermore, due to the high output of the drive motor of these apparatus, a lot of noise is produced. Since the air that is returned to the room from these apparatus is never completely free of dust particles, an unpleasant odor results in conjunction with the air that was used as cooling air for the suction fan and hence was warmed up.
To avoid all of these drawbacks, central dust-collecting systems have been developed. With these systems, the suction fan and the filter mechanism are disposed in a separate room, generally in the basement of the building. A vacuum conduit arrangement, i.e. a pipe system, leads from the dust-collecting system to the rooms that are to be cleaned. In these rooms, depending on the size thereof, the pipe system is provided with one or more connectors for a vacuum hose to which are connected the vacuum pipe and the vacuum nozzle. The person who is vacuuming the room then has only to connect the vacuum hose to a connector of the pipe system via a simple-to-use coupling. A control device of the vacuum pipe arrangement turns the suction fan on. After the vacuuming process has been concluded, and after the vacuum hose has been detached from the system, the suction fan is again turned off by the control device. This dust-collecting system eliminates the objectionable power supply lines, and furthermore a room can be quickly and easily vacuumed without the heavy, unmanageable, and cumbersome to move apparatus, since it is only necessary to move the vacuum hose, with the vacuum pipe and suction nozzle, over the surface that is to be cleaned. Although the central dust-collecting systems constitute an expensive initial investment, may become amortized over a very short period of time, since costs for continuous overall, repair, and replacement of vacuum cleaners, as well as expensive throw-away filters, are eliminated. Furthermore, the annoying smell from the exhaust stream is eliminated since the exhaust is not returned to the room that is being cleaned, but rather is blown directly into the atmosphere. The big drawback of these central dust-collecting systems is that the required vacuum conduit arrangement must already be taken into account during planning and construction of the building, since for aesthetic reasons the conduit system must be placed in the masonry or the walls. This is expensive, and also produces a lot of dirt. In addition, when the furniture of a room is rearranged, a piece of furniture frequently ends up just where a connector for the vacuum hose is located. In this case, expensive chiselling in the masonry is necessary in order to move the connectors.
It is an object of the present invention to design a vacuum conduit arrangement of the aforementioned general type in such a way that the arrangement can be retrofitted in any finished building with little expense and without producing much dirt.